Hodgson and Grice on free will

by JLS
for the GC

We know that Grice was inspired by Stout who was inspired by Hodgson who was inspired by Ward.

This from Mind 1880, Hodgson writes on "Ward on free will"

"There are in philosophy two well-defined modes or currents of thinking, which give their colour to every doctrine which may be propounded, and malk it with an opposite stamp. One is the striving after analysis, which, applied to subjective phenomena-as it must be applied in philosophy-issues in meta-

[Hodgson will be concerned with Ward, Articles from the Dublin Review: I. April, 1874, Mill's Denial of Free-will"; II. July, 1874 Appendix to Article on Free-will ;' I-II. July, 1876, "Mill on Causation " ; IV. April, 1879, "Free-will."

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"physic; the other is the search for some concrete truth or truths of self-evident certainty, from which, when applied to pheno- mena, a system of minor truths may be deduced, which is the method of, empiricism. Persons dominated by these opposite tendencies rarely understand each other, for want of perceiving the opposition in the tendency which is latent, while they per- ceive clearly enough the difference in the results which is patent. And those again who belong to the same tendency, but who are opposed on points of great importance, often misunderstand each other's position for a similar reason, because they do not perceive the sameness of the latent tendency which they have in common. There is no difference in the method of philosophising more deeply seated or more influential than this. The two tendencies govern the whole field of thought, and the two tendencies are at war.

The question is, which of the two is the legitimate master-principle in phiosophy-analysis, or deduction from sup- posed self-evident truths ? I say master-principle, because it by no means follows that the victory of either would involve the abolition of the other; it would involve only its subordina- tion, its removal to a subsidiary office. At the -same time, it must be allowed that if the empirical principle were the one to yield, its subordination would involve in some cases a change in the character of the truths which it propounds-namely, where it propounds them as of absolu,te authority. Tried by this test, confronted by this distinction of funda- mental tendencies, the most pronounced opposites must often shift places and stand shoulder to shoulder. Phenomrenist and Intuitionist are no longer such utter irreconcilables as they seem, but sometimes have a deeper union in common-namely, in those cases where they both belong to the empirical tendency.

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Mill and Ward may shake hands there.

Both are empiricists.

But the entities of Mill are objects of sensible experience, those of Ward of supra-sensible intuition.

The disciple of Mill denies the self-evidence of phenomena given by in- tuition, and appeals to phenomena given by experience; but this is not the same thing as appealing to analysis; that is, to analysis of both kinds of phenomena alike.

Some concrete, unanalysed, experience is what the disciple of Mill seeks as a basis on which to rear his system. And this method, which is doubtless the true method in science, the intuitionist extends to philosophy, while phenomenists of the Mill school deny the supposed experience of the intuitionist, his necessary intuitive truths, in the introspective domain. Between them there is a difference as to facts, but none as to method.

On the other hand, there are some phenomenipts who would come very near-, indeed to Ward's intuitionism inl results, though in method divergent as the poles.

But of all this Ward betrays not the smallest inkling. To him phenomenism is the fundamental antithesis of intuition- isin, as darkness of light, or evil of good. It never occurs to him that there are phenomenists and phenomenists; nor even, what is stranger, that there are intuitionists and intuitionists. He proceeds in the good old way to demonstrate the existence of God, as if Spinloza had not long ago exhausted the possibili- ties of the ontologico-empirical method in that direction.

In the presence of phenomenism and Mill, a re-statement of the sclholastic demonstration of God's existence becouies, he thiniks, the most pressing need of the time (April, 1879, p. 1).

Of this demonstration those articles from the Dublin Review which contain the demonstration of Free-will, and which are those named at the head of this paper, are intended to form a part.

Reprints of these articles are now before me, sent me by the kind courtesy of the author.

In return for which, I now propose, what I am sure he will approve, to break a friendly lance with the fair-minded author, by doing my best to show that not a stick or stone of the demonstration will hold together when brought to the test of analysis.

What Ward will probably not believe is, that I see no difference in essentials- that is, as a matter of practical belief influencing conduct, be- tween his view of Free-will and my own.

That the law of liberty is the highest law there is,

"Libertas suprema lex", has long been a favourite saying of mine.

But I do not on that account oppose liberty antithetically to necessity. There is anl inner, necessity of a man's nature, as well as an external necessity acting upon him from his environment; and the action of that inner necessity is his liberty.

Liberty is a mode of necessity, and its true name is self-determination. Dr. Ward's demonstra- tion may fall away, yet leave this liberty intact; and this liberty it is which, describe it as we may, theorise about it as we will, is the one common kernel of the matter, held by us both alike. But why do I say that Ward will probably not believe this? Because to believe it on both sides would be to put an end, pro tanto, to the controversy. Both would theni see that they were contending only nominally about free-will, but really about something very different.

If the practical freedom of manl, his power of self-determination with its corollaries- namely, his moral responsibility and the mnoral government of the world -were admitted to be as much consequences of deter- minism as of indeterminism, the free-will controversy would appear in its true shape and colours. That conitroversy is now kept alive on false suppositions. The real subject of dispute is not whether man is a free agent, but what school of thought shall have the credit of best assuring the doctrine that he is so.

Not the catholic truth of free-will, but the truth about free-will as held by the Catholics, is the subject of dispute.

Now the truth about free-will as held by the Catholics is what I venture to think is no truth at all, and what Dr. Ward has devoted the articles before us to demonstrate. In fact, the phrase freedom of the will is ambig,uous, and covers two very different doctrines. As it is cominonly under- stood by controversialists, and by Ward among, others, it Means that the will is free with a freedom antithetically, or wvith mutual exclusion, opposed to necessity; some acts being entirely free without admixture of necessity, and others entirely necessi- tated without admixture of freedom. This separation of free- dom and necessity is empirical, cannot be intelligibly construed to thought, and therefore renders the freedom of the will un- thinkable and illusory. So far from freedom and necessity being properties attached, one to tlhis act, one to that, they are charac- ters, both of which attach to every free act according to the point of view from which you regard it. Accordingly, in the other and true sense of the phrase freedom of the will, freedom means the action and re-action of motives on each other within the mind, not fettered by external constraint, but free to exert each its own kind and degree of energy. This exertion is free- dom; and thus a free act of the mnind is one which is wholly necessitated when you look at its factors, and wholly free when you look at their action; while from the point of view of the agent, the act is one of self-determination. Since this is the only way in which freedom can be intelligibly construed to thought, it follows that those who oppose the doctrine of free- dom, as it is commonly and empirically understood by contro- versialists, are the firmest upholders of the freedom of the will in its intelligible, real, and practical significance; which is also the sense in which it is understood by mankind at large.

The doctrine of Free-will according, to Ward consists of two branches, the first being the doctrine of Indeterminismn, the second a doctrine of the Causation of human acts.

The first he calls a psychological, the second a metaphysical doctrine (April, 1874, pp. 2, 22; April, 1879, p. 30).

The first is treated at length in the article of April, 1874, and the Appendix, July, 1874.

The second is treated in the article on " Causation," July, 1876, And the final article on " Free-will," April, 18797 sums up the results of both. In July, 1876, p. 8, -

Ward thus expounds his position: " The establishment of this truth " [of Free-will] " against phenomenists required the establishment of two conclusions, one psychological and the other metaphysical. Phenomenists allege as a matter of experience (to use Mr. Mill's words) that ' volitions follow determinat& moral antecedents with the same uniformity and the same certainty as physical effects follow their physical cause'. This is the tenet of determinism. We argued against it in April, 1874; and supplemented our reasoning by some further remarks in our following number.

We called our own adverse position by the name 'indeterminism'; being the purely negative position, that volitions are not certainly determined by psychical antecedents.

But free-will includes another doctrine besides that of indeterminism ; it includes the doctrine that man is a self-determining cause of volition. And this proposition of course cannot be treated until we have considered the question of causation." These then being the lines laid down by Dr. Ward for the treatment of the whole questioll, upon these I will now follow him, premising however that I by no means adopt his use of the term metaphysical, where I should say psychological, or (in case of Dr. Ward's theory being proved) ontological.

But apart from this, nothing can be clearer or more convenient than the divTision which he has adopted. First comes the psychological question (as he calls it) of fact. Is " the will's course of action infallibly and inevitably determined at every moment by the circumstances-(1) internal (2) external-of that moment"? (April, 1879, p. 30. See also April, 1874, p. 10, note; and July, 1874, p. 14.)

Secondly, if this is not the fact, what is the de- jterminant of the will's course in those cases where it is not determined either by circumstances within or by circumstances without the agent; or, in Dr. Ward's phrase, what is " the proxi- mate cause of free acts of the will" ? (April, 1879, p. 36.)

Though Ward calls his first position a purely negative one, in the sense of its being negative of Determinism (April, 1879, p. 30), the facts which he alleges are positive enough: " the Determinist's theory is, that, no man resists his strongest present impulse; and his theory therefore. is 6oncIusively and finally refuted, if it be shown that any one man-and much more if it be shown that a large class of men-do often resist their strongest present impulse" (April, 1879, p. 22). Nothing can be more positive, and, as he declares, more aggressive, than his whole line of argument (ib., p. 17).

He brings a long array of well chosen cases to prove, no negative point, but a positive fact, that the course of the will's action is often in opposition to the man's strongest present impulse. He rests his whole case, in the first branch- of his argument, upon his proof of this fact. The whole deterministic controversy, he says, turns on oine question, "which is simply and precisely this: Do men ever resist a real desire ? Is there such a thinig as self-restraint ?""r To aniswer it in the affirmative is to reject determinism in every possible shape" (July, 1874, p. 13; and again, quoting the former passage, April, 1879, p. 12).

Now, when one hears that the whole deterministic controversy turns on the question whether there is or is not such a thing as self-restraint, one begins to suspect that some egregious misuna derstanding of the terms employed, on one side or on the other, must be mixed up in the matter.

Do Ward's elaborately stated cases come to this, that the exercise of self-restraint is a fact ? Yes, to this and nothing else. For instance, one of his most striking cases is that of a young man who has been warned by his dentist to brush his teeth carefully every morning. But one day he is in a great hurry to get his breakfast over and go out hunting. He is on the point of disregarding the dentist's advice; " nevertheless-to use an equestrian simile such as he would himself love-he pulls himself up, and reins himself in; he dwells on the thoughts which are so clearly and distinctly in his mind, until they become vivid, and the balance of attraction is changed to the opposite side. Determinists say that such a case as this never ha.ppens; that the laws of human nature forbid it. Will any candid' enquirer on reflection endorse their dictum ?" (April, 1874, p. 14.) The italics are mine.

Easy indeed would be the refutation of determinism, if it were refuted by the existence of so simple a case as this. I therefore look, in the first place, for some mis- understanding, on one side or the other, of the terms in which it is stated; and it seems to be this. In the words " he dwells on thq thoughts," Dr. Ward, I imagine, emphasises the italicised words, so as to mark that the movement of thought originates with him. Determinists would read them without emphasis, as a true description of what takes place in his consciousness at the moment of the turning of the balance from hunting to tooth- brushing. There are two attractions, hunting and tooth-brush- ing, soliciting his attention with varying degrees of energy, and at a certain moment one of these begins decisively to prepon-, derate.

What Ward must, I think, mean theni by saying that determinists deny the possibility of such a case is, that they deny what he understands, his subauditur, in the words "'he dwells on the thought," namely, the agent's origination of the decision-or, as he might say, deny that the restraint is self- restraint. But even with this explanation we are not at the end of the disagreement. It is self-restraint as much on their reading of the words as on his. The whole balancing and decision takes place in the agent's consciousness, and therefore the decision is his decision, and the restraiint self-restraint. The agent is soli.' oited by opposite attractions, the decision depends on his state of mind, his interntal circumstances re-acting on the opposing attractions, the external circumstances. The thought of the dignity of keeping, to a good resolution is, we may imagine, the particular internal circumstance which re-inforces the external attraction of the future benefit- to be derived from the otherwise irksome tooth-brushing. This reading of the story in the determinist sense will not, however, satisfy the indeterminist. He requires a cause beyond the preponderalnce of one external attraction over another when aided by the attraction of some internal circumstance. He will say, perhaps, that internal circumstances, states of mind, and so on, are not the agent himself; and will ask farther what decides that- such and such an internal circumstance shall come into play here and now, and with this or that precise degree of force ? He will urge that, if the determinist's reading were true, we ought not to say " he dwells on the thought," but rather, " the thought dwells on him". The agent himself, he will conclude, cannot be ignored. What has the determinist to say in reply? This, that his own way of reading the above description includes and fully expresses all the fatcts of the case, but that the indeterminist's reading of it introduces into the facts the notion of causation, and the assertion of a cause of the fact of decision, which is not an observed fact, but, if it exists, belongs to the second branch- of the whole question of free-will, as distinguished by Dr. Ward himself. To emphasise the " he dwells on the thought" is to import into the facts as observed a supposed, but not ob- served, cause of the direction those facts are observed to take. The determinist denies, and the indeterminist asserts, that the " e," the agent himself apart from his internal condition at the time, is a fact observable in cases of free choice. " It is a matter of direct, unmistakable, clamorous consciousness, that during those periods " [of resistance to impulse] " it is my own soul and no external agency, which is putting forth active and sustained anti-impulsive effort " (April, 1879, p. 39).

Here Ward lays claim to an immediate knowledge not only of the facts of choice, but of the cause governing the facts. To make his testimony as to what the facts are quite complete, he ought to have added to the words " my own soul and no external agency " the further words, and no internal cireumstance or state of mny soul; as other, wise he does not fullr deny the determinist's statement that internal circumstances concur in the result. Still it is clear that Dr. Ward claims to have an immediate knowledge of the agent, or soul, per se, in cases of conscious anti- impulsive effort, and claims it as an essential part of the facts of which anti-impulsive effort consists. But the existence of this knowledge requires proof, and no proof has he supplied; indeed, he has not even distinguished the fact of which proof is required from the other facts which go to constitute an anti-impulsive effort in the cases which he describes. He huddles it up with those facts in describing them, and then at last emphasises it, as if it had been distinctly described, when be comes to account for their causation.

Yet I should have thought it was almost a truism at the present day, tJiat we have no direct knowledge or intuition of our soul per se, apart from the states of conscious- ness which we attribute to it, and which are the " internial cir- cuinstances " of the determinists. If, however, Dr. Ward tlhinks, as he plainly does, that we have such an immediate knowledge of the soul per se, it ought to have been expressly described in describing the cases of anti-impulsive effort in. which the know- ledge is obtained; and then it would have ranked (of 6ourse for what it was worth) among the facts of the case. As it is, it is only an hypothesis accounting, for the facts, and one the value of which must be discussed, not now, but when we come to the second branch of the argument.

The facts as Ward de- scribes them, in all the cases of anti-impuilsive effort which he gives, are perfectly- compatible with determinism. But before going farther, it will be best to state more explicitly what Dr. Ward's theory precisely is, what precisely he considers that his instances prove. And againi, in order to do this, somle very important differences in the use of terms must be menS tioned, which Dr. Ward himself points out, and insists upon as requisite to the understanding of his theory.

Chief among these is the use of the term "motive", which with Ward means, not as with determinists, and I believe usually, spring of action, felt attraction or aversion -- but resolve.

So that my resolve to follow a certaini line of conduct is, according to him, my "motive" for doing a particular action.

Whereas "motive" usually means the pleasure or advantage I expect to get, the pain or disadvantage I expect to avoid, by doing that action.

These Ward calls, not "motives", but attractions positive or negative.

"We will adopt therefore the word 'attraction,' in a very similar sense to that which determinists express by the term 'motive'".

"We will call by the name of an 'attraction' every thought which proposes some pleasure, positive or negative, to be gained by some act or course of action; and we will call one attraction stroniger than another, if the pleasure proposed by the former is apprehendedl as greater,-is moie attractive at the moment,- than that proposecl by the latter " (April, 1874, p. 8).

According,ly by "ultimate motive" in a course of action, Dr. Ward means my "resolve of pursuing some absolute end or ends, with a view to obtaining which I beg,ini and continue that course of action.

And what an 'ultimate motive' is in relation to an absolute end or ends, precisely that is an 'immediate' or 'intermnediate' motive in relation to a relative end or ends" (April, 1874, p. 10).

Here the end or ends desired would be called the motives by determinists, and not the resolve to pursue them. I will not stop here to do more than point out how entirely destitute this use of the word motive for resolve leaves us, when we inQuire how resolves themselves are formed. And yet everything may turn upon the answer to that question. Ac- cording to the usage of determinists, all acts, including internal acts of resolve, spring from motives; according to that of inde- terminists, resolves are the one kind of acts which cannot sprinig from motives, whatever else they may spring from. The term motive, in their use of it, ceases to be applicable to the formation of resolves, a process which their terminology leaves in its native obscurity. In accordance with the foregoing explanation, the terms desire, attraction, and pleasure, are used by Dr. Ward in a far more restricted sense than by determinists, By determinists they are applied to ends or purposes of all kinds, as co-extensive with imagined good or bonumn generally; but by Dr. Ward they are restricted to one kind of good, pleasure as opposed to virtue, bonum delectabile as opposed to bonum honestum. Yet bona be- longing to either class may be the objects' of resolves (April, 1874, p. 11). It would seem, then, that a good thing may be the object of a resolve, without having any attractive power on the will,- a psychological impossibility.

The next difference in terms is more important still, inasmnuch as it is not merely a matter of terminology, but introduces, by giving a technical name to it, a new or at least peculiar distri- bution of the subject-matter; it is part of the analysis as well as of the nomenclature.

I mean what Dr. Ward calls the "definite and decisive spontaneous impulse of the will"; by which he means the resultant direction of the will, the impulse resulting from the conflict of all the attractions in play at the time. Ho'w far Mill's or Professor Bain's language may have lent itself to the singularity of calling a resultant direction spon- taneous, I will not stop to askc. Whatever is purely mnatter of terminology is comparatively unimportant. But that the phenomena of volition should be cut up and parcelled out by a phrase of this kind, as if the existence of a corresponding fact was matter of notoriety, is logically monstrous.

The assumption of a fact is here involved in the invention of a phrase. Dr. Ward is in fact assuming thereby that all the attractions, pleasures, or desires, all the bona delectabilia which the case may admit of, act together and at once, without admixture from any conflicting bonu,m honestum, and result in an impulse which is thus' determined solely by the balance of pleasurableness. Then comes in, in some cases, the resistance of some bonwm, honestumn, and by a resolve turns the balance the other way. Now this analysis of the facts in cases of volition is perfectly arbitrary. It recalls the wish of the Roman worthy, that all iRomans had but one neck, that he might behead them at a blow. Facts, however, are too stubborn to -dispose themselves so oblig- ingly. The bona honesta as well as the delectabilia must logically be counted among the contributories to the resultant.

Which is what the determinists mean by saying that the resultant is inevitably determined by the motives, motives meaning with them all the attractions; and that the " resolve of pursuing some absolute end," which is Dr. Ward's definition of an "ultimate motive," is synonymous with " the desire of some preponder- ating pleasure," pleasure meaning with them good of every kind; though I cannot let this latter statement pass as in all respects representing their meaning. A resolve is not strictly the same thing as a desire; it is rather the tutrning of the balance in favour of a preponderating desire; the action induced by the greater strength of the desire, not the greater strength itself. And what precisely happens at this moment of turning of the balance, or what is the true analysis of that moment's contentt, this it is which is the real question of Free-will. Two important discrepancies, then, have now been signalised between what I 'may call Dr. Ward's and the determinists' preparation of the facts for analysis, between their several modes of stating the problem. The first is the claim by Dr. Ward to have a. supposed immediate self-perception of the agent per se, at the moment of resolve or turning of the balance, included among the facts of the case, which they would deny; the second is Dr. Ward's assumption that the facts constituting cases of volition marshal themselves in such a manner, that actions which are led up to by attractions balance themselves first, and result in a "' spontaneous impulse of the will," and then actions which are not led up to by attractions, but spring from resolves, in some cases overpower and reverse this spontanoous impulse, which Dr. Ward calls the will's " anti-impulsive action ".

It is with the latter of these discrepancies that we have to do now, in the first branch of the argument; we have in fact to consider whether there is any suich difference in mnode of origin between .the - actions which Dr. Ward says are led up to by attractions, and those which he says spring from resolves, as to warrant us in making them, into two naturally antagonistic classes, impulsive and anti-impulsive. Determinists contend that, whatever may be the analysis of the moment of turning, of the balance, resolves themselves of all kinds are led up to by attractions of some kind or other, and consequently that Dr. Ward's distinction between impulsive and aniti-iinpulsive action is arbitrary; the analysis of all volitions being alike in this, that they are led up to by desires, decided by resolves, and carried out by actions conse- quelit on resolves.

Let us now hear Dr. Ward's own statement of his theory (April, 1874, p. 9):- "We beg our readers then to fix their attention on that definite and, decisive spontaneous impulse of the will, which is so very common a phe- nomenon, and to which we have so often referred. We entirely agree with Mill, as we just now said, that this spontaneous impulse of the will is infallibly determined at each particular moment, by the balance of plea- sureableness as apprehended at that moment." [Dr. Ward explains in a note that the way in which, as he agrees, the will's spontaneous impulse is formed, namely, by the balance of pleasure, is quite unessential to his own argument, which turns solely on the question, wlhether it is ever resisted.] "But the whole deterministic argument rests from beginning to end on the assiiixption, that men never resist this spontaneous impulse: whereas we confidently affirm, as an experienced fact, that there are cases of such resistance-numerous, unmistakable, nay, most striking. What we allege to be a fact of indubitable experience is this. At some given moment, my will's gravitation, as it mav be called, or spontaneous impulse is in some given direction ; insomuch that if I held myself passively,-if I let my will alone-it would with absolute certainty move accordingly: but in fact I exeit miiyself with nmore or less vigour to resist such impulse; and then the action of my will is in a different, often an entirely opposite direction. In other words, we would draw our readers' attention to the frequently occur- ing simultaneous existence of two very distinct phenomena. On the one hand (1) my will's gravitation or spontaneous impulse is strongly in one direction; while on the other hand at the same moment (2) its actual movement is quite divergent from this.

Now that which 'motives' [in the determinists' sense] affett, is most evidently the will's spontaneous inclination, impulse, gravitatioin. The determinist then, by saying that the will's movement is infallibly determined bv ' motives,' is obliged to say that the will never moves in opposition to its spontaneous impulse. And in fact he does say this. All cleterminists assume as a matter of course, that the will never puts forth effort, for the purpose of resisting its spon- taneous impulse. We on the contrary allege, that there is no mental fact more undleniable, than the frequent putting forth of such effort." Take another passage from the same article, p. 11:- "We have already expressed our conviction, that at any giveni moment the will's spontaneous impulse (of which we have said so much) is infallibly determined by the preponderance of pleasure proposed. The thought of this preponderating pleasure may be called the ' preponderating attraction,' or 'the resultant of co-existing attractioins '. Again we have often to speak of the will's ' spontaneous impulse': this we will sometimes call the will's ' preponderating' impulse; or, for brevity's sake, we may omllit the acljec- tive altogether, anid speak of the will's 'impulse'. Resistance to this impiulse may be called ' anti-impulsive effort' issuing in ' anti-impulsive action '." Dr. Ward does not pass quite dry-shod over the question, What determines the resistance to the will's spontaneous im- pulse ? But his answer is of such a character as almost to surrender his whole contention.

In the same article of April, 1874,- p. 21, we read:- " One further question remains to be asked. What are the motives which actuate a man, when he resists his will's spontaneous impulse? In every instance, by far the easiest course is to act in response to that impulse: and no one will take the trouble of' resisting it, except for some unmistakably worthy motive; some clear dictate of reason. There are two and two only classes Qf motives, which occur to our mind as adequate to the purpose. First, there is the resolve of doing what is right. ... Another motive, which often suggests itself, is my desire of promoting my perma- nent happiness, in the next world or even in this. . . . It is an observed phenomenon, we contend, that men do at times resist the spon- taneous impulse of their will, when induced so to do by one or other of these two classes of motives: but where such motives are away, it seems to us a matter of course, that every one is always led by his predominating attraction." To the last sentence Dr. Ward appends the following foot- note: "We do-not of course for a moment deny that determinists include both the pleasureableness of virtue and the pleasureableness of promoting a man's own permanent interest among the attractions which inffluence his will. But it is a matter of every-day experience that the pleasureableness of this or that immediate gratification is more attractive than these at some given moment. And what we allege is, that inen not unfrequently resist such preponderating attraction, for the sake of practising virtue or of pro- moting their own permanent interest." Not enough, I reply. Not enough, without adding to the last dozen words these further ones, as distinguished from the pleasure of practising or promoting them. This is what Dr. Ward must show, or fall into, the determinists' position, which is, that the purpose of practising virtue or of promoting their own perma- nent interest is the preponderating attraction in these cases. And what can the indeterminists rejoin? Are virtue and self- interest such thoroughlqy unpleasant things that the pursuit of them can in no degree be owing to their attractiveness ? Yet if some tinge -of attractiveness is theirs, tlhen, on Dr. Ward's principles, they must pro tanto -be contributories to the resultant spontaneous impulse of the will; which nevertheless, as motives of its anti-impulsive action, they resist. Their position in the economy of volition is then a truly critical one; they are divided against themselves; they resist in one character what they con- tribute to form in another. The line which separates Dr. Ward from the determinists is in this place narrow indeed, and to me, I confess, invisible. The sole difference is a purely arbitrary one introduced by Dr. Ward. Determinists, as he shows by quoting from Mill and Prof. Bain (April, 1874, p. 4, note, and again April, 1879, 17, pp. 14, 15), mean by strongest motive strongest in relation to pleasure and pain, and not merely strongest in relation to the will. By quoting- them Dr. Ward merely means to keep them to their affirmation. Attractions of all kinds being included by them under the term motives, they allege that those which are stronger in relation to pleasure and pain are also stronger in relation to the will, and that, when any motive has proved stronger in relation to the will, we are entitled to infer that it was the stronger in relation to pleasure and pain. For we have, in many cases, no other means of testing the comparative strength of nearly-balanced attractions, in relation to pleasure and pain, than the observation of their strength in relation to the will, as shown by the decision of an act of choice.

This, however, is not an assumptiont on the part of determinists, but is part of their theory of the case, founded on the innumerable instances in which not only pleasure is an undoubted motive power, but in which pleasures already known as greater are found to be stronger than pleasures already known as less; cases which, as they allege, are uncontradicted by any proved counter instances. Dr. Ward, on the other hand, assumes an arbitrary and em- pirical distinction between attractions; two classes of them, namely, those of virtue and, permanent self-interest, he sets apart from the rest, and opposes them to pleasurable attractions, under the title of resolves to resist impulse; as if they too had not a pleasure of their own, often very intense and in most cases very abiding. So that the force which they exert on the will comes in many cases rather from the permanence of an abiding latent thought, ready to spring forward into distinct conisciousness in intervals of reflection, than from a transitory keenness in affect- ing the sensibility. The consciousness that yielding to some attraction will ruin the permanent and pleasurable sense of self- respect or peace of mind, will often drive out the attraction and occupy ia its room.

Sometimes it acts by embittering or enfeebling the attraction, sometimes by setting up a counter attraction, but in both cases it is pleasurable. On one side, then, is a certain vividness and pungency, on the other a staying power; but the pleasures which have a staying power are still pleasures, though of a different kind. And in judging the com- parative strength of disparate pleasures such as these, often the only way 'open to ifs is to see which of the two is actually obeyed at the moment of 'choice. It is often unknown to the chooser himself till his own choice enlightens him. It is in this moment of ignorance, previous to choice, that he has that sense of being able to choose which is called the sense of freedom; and from that moment it is that what he is manifests itself in what he does. Let us now take one of Dr. Ward's clear and, I mnust say, admirably stated instances; it shall be taken fromn the Ap- pendix of July, 1874, which is chiefly devoted to instances, and one which he evidently thinks clear and decisive (p. 9):-

"Our next illustration shall be for the purpose of explaining, that the present issue does not turn at all on the question whether effort is put forth by the agent, but only anti-impulsive effort. With this view we will recur in the first instance to the illustration which we derived (April, 1874, pp. 3, 4) from the demeanour in battle of some courageous soldier. He will often put forth intense effort ; brave appalling perils; confront the risk of an agonising death. But to what end is this effort directed ? He puts it forth in order that he may act in full accordance with his spontaneous im- pulse; that he may gratify what is his strongest wish, his real desire: in order that he may overcome the enemy, obtain fame and distinction, avoia the reproach of cowardi-ce, &c., &c. Such efforts as these we may call ' con- genial' efforts. But now take the instance of a military officer-possessing real piety and stedfastly purposing to grow therein-who receives at the hand of a brother officer some stinginog and (as the world would say) ' in- tolerable' insult. His nature flames forth; his spontaneous impulse, his real present desire, is to inflict some retaliation, which shall at least deliver him from the ' reproach' of cowardice.

Nevertheless it is his firm resolve, by God's grace, to comport himself Christianlv. His resolve contends vigorously against his desire, until the latter is brought into ha-rmony with his principles. Here then are two -cases, which agree with each other as being cases of intense effort; but the former is ' congenial' effort, while the latter is ' anti-impulsive'. What is most remarkable in the last named officer is his 'self-restraint' ; but it would be simply absurd to talk of self-restraint in the former instance. No one, who considers ever so little, can overlook the fundamental contrast between, the two cases." Yes, it is a very decided contrast. But it is not fundamental in respect of the nature of volition, and proves nothing whatever in favour of Dr. Ward's analysis of acts of choice. The~ " last- named officer " overcomes a real desire, but how ? By a stroinger desire. He opposes a desire which is in process of becoming a resolve by a desire which has already become one; opposes a new desire which derives its strength froin its vividness by an old, desire which derives its strength from its fixity. The same may be said of all the instances given by Dr. Ward in this Appendix. Take his instance of a boy who is supposed to decide against running away from -a school, at which hbe is miserable, on three sorts of grounds.

First, he may represent to himnself that home will, under the circumstances, not be pleasant; this, says Dr. Ward, is a case of counter-attraction, his real desire now is to remain at school, and he remains. Secondly, he may consider that remaining will be more in accordance with the will of God, which is an attraction to him in consequence of his early train- ing; this, too, changes his real desire, makes it a desire of re, maining, and he remains. But thirdly, from the motive, or resolve, of virtue and permanent self-interest, he sets himself to resist that which is his spontaneous impulse and real desire, namely, to leave school; and remains, though against his real desire. " Here," says Dr. Ward, " is a case in which self-restraint really does come in." The state of struggle while it lasts is " most unmistakably heterogeneouis from that which we last described," that is, from the -second case.

Yes, different from it no doubt; but to this extent only, that the thought of virtue and permanent self-interest has

(1) a different kinid of attractiveness from that of obedience to the will of God, which in the case supposed Las already become pleasant; and

(2) has a different kind of attrac- tiveness froma that of quitting school, an attractiveness owing to its fixity, and not to its vividness. - " The cases," says Dr. Ward in a footnote to p. 11, " the cases on which we insist are those, in which I resolve and act in direct opposition to what (at the- very moment of acting) I desire. The undeniable existence of such cases is the fact, on which we rest as fatal to determinismn." Observe, at the very moment of acting; thus precluding the possible misconception, that cases in whicl a new attraction preponderates over a prior one, thus changing -my desire of one moment into a new desire of the next moment, are the cases he insists upon. There are cases, says iDr. Ward, in which we resolve and act in direct opposition to what at that ver-y moment we desire. Is this true ? Certainly not, in miiy opinion, and as I think I have sufficiently shown. In these cases, what we most desire, at the very moment of choice, is to do our painful dutty. Dr. Ward, it will be noticed, adopts as the fact from which he reasons, the one complex moment of conflict between impulse and anti-impulsive effort; expressly excluding from that moment the consideration of its antecedents. This one complex moment of conflict, he argues, si ows that the soul puts forth a free power, namely, in those cases where the anti-impulsive effort is victori- ous. But I would ask,-If he excludes from consideration the antecedents of the moment of conflict, how does he know that it is the soqal which puts forth the anti-impulsive effort ?

For, taking it so, the soul's putting forth the effort is an inference, not an observation; and the observation of the moment of conflict alone carries us no farther than to the sense of freedom, which is admitted on all hands to be a fact. If on the other hand the antecedents are taken into account, then experience shows that the soul's anti-impulsive effort is as much dependent on ante- cedents, though not perhaps on the same antecedents, as the spontaneous impulse.

Dr. Ward's reply must be, as shown above, that we have an immediate intuition of the soul per se, in the very moment of conflict. And to this I now make the further reply, that this alone is not a sufficient premiss from which directly to deduce its freedom. It is necessary also to maintain an intuition of it as an agent which acts independently of antece- dents in the moment of conflicts; which would be an intuition at variance with all experience, as I have endeavou'red to show. Dr. Ward is thus driven to rest his case for freedom on the assertion, that we have, in the moment of conflict, an immediate intuition of -the soul as a free agent, which is no: more than supposing his case proved by stating that he knows it to be true. II. Having now shown the utter fallaciousness! o Dr. Ward's exposition of the facts which are observed in cases of volition, on which his entire disproof of determinism depends, I proceed in the next place to the second branch, the causation branch, of his argument. Aind the first remark I have to make is this, that the only circumstance which makes any special theory of causation requisite is that same fallacious diagnosis of the facts, which has been already exposed.

There is,- according to Dr. Ward, a re- markable phenomenon, of a very special. kind, called anti- impulsive effort. How, then, does this come to pass, how is it to be accounted for ? If it were of a piece with the other phenomena of volition, as the determinists maintain, it would require no special and peculiar causative agency to be introduced to explain it; the same theory of causation, whatever it might bej would serve for all. It appears, therefore, that the whole of Dr. Ward's second branch of the argument, his theory of causa- tion, serves but to explain an anomaly arising from his fallacious diagnosis of facts in his first branch. It is his way of solving his own self-created difficulty, solving it, as we shall see, by greater difficulties. The full doctrine of Free-will, which is Dr. Ward's conclusion, may be best seen in connexion with both branches of his argu- ment, from an illustration which he gives near the end of his final article of April, 1879, p. 43: CC I am walking for health's sake in my grounds on a bitterly cold day.

My strongest present desire is to be back comfortably in the warm house ; but I persistently refuse to gratify that desire; remembering the great im- portance of a good walk, not only for my general health, but for my evening's comfort and my nights sleep.


Plainly, according to the Jesuit definition"

["

Potentia libera est ea que, positis omnnibus requisitis ad agendum, potest agere et non agere.

quoted p. 42]

" my will acts with perfect freedonm. My present action is resistanceQ to niy strongest present desire; and I have full proximate power to abstain, if I choose, from the continuance of this action, by resolving to go indoors. But no less plainly this act is free, according to that definition of Free-will which we ourselves set forth"

["

Libertas est ea indifferentia activa agentis, qud, positis omnibus ad agendum requisitis, potest agere et non agere.

quoted from F. Palmieri, p. 42].

" My soul and body, co-operating as blind causes, generate my preponderating spontaneous impulse towards going indoors; while my soul, acting as an originative cause, generates my continued resistance to that preponderating spontaneous impulse. " Conversely. I am sitting over the fire, with a novel" in my hand; and: my strongest present desire is to continue in my present position. I re- member, indeed, that nothing in a small way can well be worse for me, and that I shall pay dearly for my self-indulgeiice. Video meliora proboque: deteriora sequor, and I stay just as I am.

Here again, according to the Jesuit definition, I am undeniably free.

For I am entirely able, without any fuirther requisita ad agendum, either to continue my self-indulgent action or to abstain from it. And here again my freedom is equally manifest, according to our own definition of freedom. True, indeed, my soul is not at this moment acting as an originative cause ; but it has the proximate power of so acting if it pleases." Here, then, we have the whole modus operandi outlined, and the theory accounting for the facts, as exhibited previously, may accordingly be stated somewhat as follows. The soul of man is a cause, or causal agent, which is free, that is, has the power of acting or abstaining, every other requisite for action being pre- supposed. Farther, it is an originative and not merely a "blind" cause, like physical bodies, e.g., the suni; though in regard to one class of its effects, namely, those in which it acts jointly with the body, it is a blind cause, acting with the strictest necessity (April, 1879, pp. 37, 38). Its freedom. depends on its being also an originative cause, for " the notion of freedom is included -in the notion of an originative cause" (ib., p. 40). And being an originative cause, it must also be an intelligent one (ib., p. 38). From the long passage just quoted it also appears, that the spon- taneous impulse of the will is caused by the joint action of the soul and the body, while its anti-impulsive action is due to the soul alone, acting as an originative cause. Two other remarks of Dr. Ward's will complete the picture. " Firstly, when tae will is said to act, tlais is a mere figure of speech; for it is the soul which acts. Secondly, when the soul is said ' to act,' the immediate reference is to its own internal action; whether or no that internal action be the resolving on, nay the immediately commanding of, some external act." (lb., p. 42.) Such, briefly, but I trust sufficiently stated, is the theory which Dr. Ward undertakes to prove. Everything in it turns on the existence and nature of the " soul," for on its agency alone does free anti-impulsive action depend.

What, then, is Dr. Ward's conception of the nature of the soul, and what is his proof of its existence ?

These are points which require treating, on his part, with the greatest- care and thoroughness, for they are the basis of his whole theory.

Yet it is precisely on these points that the critic's work is lightest. He buas only to indicate lacunw. Dr. Ward supplies no proof at all that the soill, aa he 'QQceives it, exists i and no evidence that his conception of its nature and powers is a true conception. It-is true that he imagines that he has done so. He imagines, no doubt, that he puts in evidence of the existeince and powers of the soul, when he says, in a passage already quoted and criticised, "lIt is a matter of direct, unmistakable, clamorous consciousness, that during those periods" [of resistance to impulse] "it is my own soul and no external agency, which is putting forth active and sustained anti-impulsive effort" (April, 1879, p. 39).

But this is a very different thing from having such a perception of the soul per se, its nature, and powers, as will serve for the basis of an explanatory theory.

For suchl a basis we want proof of the existence and nature of the soul per se; not, as in the passage quoted, of the soul and its actions mixed up together. That may serve as a description, a prelimi- nary description, of the things to be explained, but not as a proof of the causes explaining them. Has, then, Dr. Ward no niotion whatever of the soul per se? 0 yes, he has one which he throws in by the way, as an obiter dictum: "It is implied, we may add, in their" [the intuitionists'] "whole notion of a 'cause,' that a cause must be one or other substance. When they mention the influx of my volition into somne blow which I deal forth, they would thus explain their meaning in detail. The blow is nothing else than a certain movement of my closed hand.

The cause of that inovement is my soul; which addresses, if we may so speak, to my hand that command, which is called a ' volition'." (lb. p. 33.)

If it is implied in the intuitionists' whole notion of a cause, that it is a substance, some proof ought certainly to be offered that the notion is correct, and that causes which are substances really exist.

But it may be said, though direct proof, that the particular kind of substance, called the soul, exists, may be wanting, still it may possibly be shown by Ward that causes exist, and that these must be substances; so that from that side, and indirectly, the proof of the soul's existence may be given.

We have just seen that Dr. Ward refers us to the intuitionists' notion of a cause. Let us see how he expounds that notion; turiling to the place at which he addresses himself to the task, in the " Causation " article of July, 1876, pp. 18-19: "We consider on one hand, that the idea 'cause ' is a simple idea, not composed of any others; and on the other hand, that it is a purelv intel- lectual idea, not a copy of anything experienced by the senses. In the course of our articles we have already mnentioned two such simple and purely intellectual ideas : viz., ' necessary' and 'moral good' : and to these we here add that of ' cauise '. Now, of course, there is a certain difficulty in explain- ing an idea of this kind. Were it a copy of some sensation, we could content ourselves with referring to such sensation. Were it composed of simpler ideas, we could explain it by reciting those simpler ideas. But neither of these m-ethods being (by hypothesis) available,-we can only suggest the occasions on whichl an inquirer may unmistakably recognise, what is beyond doubt a very pronminent part of his mental furniture. Now the instance, most commonly given by philosophers of a ' cause,' seems to us most happily chlosen for our purpose; as being one in which that idea is exhibited with especial distinctness and prominence: we refer to the influx of a man's mental volitions into his bodily acts. I am urgently in need of some article, contained in a closet of which I cannot find the key, and accordingly I break open the closet with my fist. Certainly my idea of the relation which exists between my volition and my blow, is something indefinitely beyond that of mere prevenance " [Dr. Ward's word for phenomenal sequence]. " If on the one hand that idea is incapable of being analysed, on the other hand it is to the full as incapable of being explained away or mis- apprehended." Not one word about substance from beginning to end; not one word about that which, as we since learn, "is implied" by intu- tionists " in their whole notion of a cause ". Perhaps it will be replied, that in this long passage Dr. Ward is explaining the notion of cause generally, of causation, not of a cause, i.e., some- thing which has or exercises causation. This, I believe, is partially, though not altogether, the case; but even that does not rnend the matter. The connexion between a substance as cause and its power or attribute of causation is left entirely blank. Dr. Ward seems to slide from one to the other without noticing it. In the above passage he begins with explaining causation, and continues doing so down to the words ' mental furniture ". On the other side of the full stop which follows them, he has probably a causal substance in his mind. But if he has, he takes no notice of the newly introduced notion; still less does he offer any explanation of how causation can possibly be connected with a causal substance.

And in the first part of the passage he is doing neither more nor less than what I have elsewhere noticed that Hegel and Schopenhauer do (MIND XVI., p. 501); that is, he is assuming the notion of efficacy as an ulti- mate and unanalysed datum.

The soul, then, is not proved by Dr. Ward to exist as a causal substance, either directly or indirectly; still less is it proved to exist as an originative, intelligent, and free causal -substance. The proof breaks down from the beginning, or rather no proof is really attempted at all. For it is suspended entirely on the intuitionists' doctrine of causation; and, even if that doctrine were true, would break down just the same. For the link of suspension is wanting. It is painfully interesting to see the care with which Dr. Ward accumulates his logical apparatus for explaining and de- imonstrating his doctrine of causation, which is destined after all to be of so little service.

Two great principles there are, he
Dr. Ward on Free-Will. 245 says, which it is requisite to make good againist phenomenists; one is the " principle of certitude," or as he elsewhere calls it " of intrinsic certitude," which is this: "Whatever a man's existent cognitive faculties, if rightly interrogated and interpreted, avouch as certain, is thereby known to him as certain " (July, 1876, p. 5). The other is the principle that " the human mind hias a power on occasion of certainly and immediately cognising necessary ampliative truths as such"; meaning by aimpliative what are more frequently called synthetical as opposed to merely analytical judgments. (lb., p. 7.)

The "principle of causationl" or "the causation doctrine"' (both phrases are Dr. Ward's) is maintained by him to be a necessary ampliative truth; and is expressed in the statement, that " whatever has a commencement has a cause" (ib., p. 13). All this part of his argument, Dr. Ward frankly and fairly tells us, is based " not on grounds of experience, but of intuition ". " It is only," he says, " through intuition, that either phenomen- ists or any one else can possess experience of phenomena. Those particular intuitions, which are called acts of memory, are literally the only basis they can allege, for any one experience which they cite " (ib., p. 14). Here we have the whole logical process outlined. Intuition is the basis; then the two great intuitive pillars, the principles of certitude and of necessary ampliative truths; then the par- ticular necessary ampliative truth of causation. And what I maintain is, that, even if all this body of logic were sound and true, still Dr. Ward would not have proved his case, because the link which connects it with the soul as a substance is wanting. I leave it therefore unconitroverted; and the more readily because I have elsewhere (in the Philosophy of Beflection) had occasion to criticise at some length that part of Dr. Ward's theory which identifies memory with intuition, together with several of its consequences; and this doctrine really contains the root of Dr. Ward's whole system.

There again we touch what must always be the real ground of any controversy, namely, concrete facts of consciousness which exist for all men, and in the analysis of which their power of mental insight is most usefully taxed. This, too, it is which gives the former part of the present argu- ment, its psychological branch as Dr. Ward calls it, its greater interest and importance, compared to the second, which is occu- pied with the abstract entities of substance and cause. And here it is worth while to remark that, in the article of July, 1876, Dr. Ward expresses the doctrine of causation in volition in a way which is very different from his detailed state- muent of it in April, 1879, and which, taken alone, might well be accepted by determinists. He -says, p. 8:

"But Free-will includes another doctrine besides that of indeterminism; it includes the doctrine that man is a self-determining cause of volition."

Now, determtinists may well -accept the general statement that -man is a self-determining cause of volition; for, first, there is no statement about the soul being the man, or being a substance; and secondly, self-deter-- mination is at any rate determination.

But this general state- ment is plainly not the one which Dr. Ward means to be his final one.

It will stand, whatever theory we may hold about the nature of the agent concerned in volition, whether it be an immaterial substance called soul, or a particular kind of material substance, namely, some living portion of nerve organism of which consciousness is a function. In whichever way, then, we conceive the nature of the agent, determinists need not hesitate to admit that he exercises, in volition, a self-determining power. What they deny is, that he exercises, in volition, a power of choice which is not determined by his nature, that is, by himself. They maintain that the exercise, and even the existence, of such a power as that last described is not capable of being intelligibly construed in thought; that when it is said to be- conceived or imagined, as it appears to be by Dr. Ward' (April, 1879, pp. 33, 38), it is in a loose sense-of those terms, a sense not including intelligible construing in thought; and that tlle notion of the- soul as a substance serves no other purpose than that of veiling this want of intelligibility, by assigning an obscure source of the power which may render it acceptable to belief, without rendering it intelligible to understanding. An agent having some nature or other must be conceived in- or before conceiving an act of any kind. When we say that an act is the act of an agent, we mean that it is determined wholly or in part' by the natubre of the agent. What he is manifests itself in what, under the circumstances, he does. Let -us then assume, for argument's sake, that the agent is a substance called soul; and let us take those acts which are called acts of choice. Then any act of choice will be determined by the nature of the soul; and that is the determinist's theory; liberty consisting in the determination of the choice by the nature of the agent (which on the present assumption is the soul). For, when we conceive attractions soliciting the soul (or agent, however conceived) in opposing directions, there must neces- sarily be conceived also something which, being solicited, is capable of re-acting upo:f the solicitations; and this something we now call the soul, in that state of consciousness which it has when the solicitations begin, and which passes into other states of consciousness when they continue; which are the 'internal circumstances' spoken of by determinists, the soliciting attractions being called ' external circumstances'. The re-action of the soul upon the solicitations, so as to decide either between them, or between some of them and some of its own internal states, is what is known as choice or volition. Now all the elements of the problem are here taken account of, and there- fore the determinists are justified in saying that the will is ne- cessarily determined by the balance of motives, or circumstances external and internal. In the re-action of the soul with its I internal circumstances' upon the external solicitations consists its freedom. If it were determined in any other way than by its own re-action upon the external solicitations it would not be free, for it would not be exerting volition. But Dr. Ward's theory, so far as I can understand it, is tlhat liberty consists in the non-dependence of the choice on the- nature of the soul, in non-determination by it. And when asked-On what then does it depend? his reply, I imagine, would be-On the soul's power of choosing. I pass over the tautology of this supposed reply, its alleging the possession of a power of choice as the ground of exercising choice; and confine myself to the remark that, on this showing, the soul is only then perfectly free when its own nature is perfectly inoperative in determining its acts of choice. We are required to conceive a perfectly colourless and independent power of choice, a bare. faculty of resolve. severed from the rest of the characteristics which compose the soul's nature, for only in that severance is it conceived as the ground of freedom; and yet that the soul itself, including its nature, which does not contribute to the free choice, is blamable or praiseworthy in consequence of it. Dr. Ward then, I think, is in this dilemma: either the free choice, or resolve, of the soul is caused by the soul, and then he is a determinist; or else the free choice, or resolve, of the soul is caused by the bare power, in the soul, of freely choosing or, resolving, and that is tautological trifling.

I argue therefore that, unless Dr. Ward is a determinist without knowing it, the only meaning attributable to his doctrine of free-will is this that a frete act is an act without an agent.

On this point I would refer the reader to Jonathan Edwards's Enqusiry concern- ing Freedom of the Will, Part II., Sect. iv., entitled, "Whether volition can arise without a cause, through the activity of the nature of the soul".

Indeed, in all parts of the subject, excepb its connexion with physiology, which is not treated by Edwards, this classical work is an authority of the highest order.

And this leads me to make one or two remarks on Dr. Ward's belief that the existence of guilt and sin (April, 1874, pp. 15, 34-5), and the existence of morality in the Christian sense, and of a mQral goveriiment of the world (April, 1879, p. 18), are incompatible with determinism. His argument may be stated briefly, but not I hope unfairly, as follows :-Since we did not make our own nature-then, if our acts of choice are deter- mined by our nature (as they are, in the last resort at any rate, on the determinist's theory), we should not be morally respon- sible for our acts of choice, unless we suppose that we have a power of choosing independlent of our nature. Such is the argument as I apprehend it, and'stated as strongly as I can state it. I am not insensible to its great apparent co- gency. But, in the first place, I think it is founded on a mis- conception of what moral responsibility is. Moral responsi- bility consists in responsibility to a tribunal of a moral charac- ter, such as we conceive our own conscience to be, and God to be.

It does not consist in our being justly responsible for certain acts. But the question whether or not we are justly re- sponsible, in the sense of justly deserving praise or blamie, reward or punishmient, for certain acts, is a question for the moral tribunal itself ;-the moral character of which tribunal makes our responsibility a moral one. Now these two ideas of moral responsibility are confused in the above argument. It is argued, virtually, that we are not justly responsible for acts flowing from our own nature, so far as we did not cause that nature to be what it is. And I reply, that this is a question for the moral tribunal to decide; and that we are as a fact morally responsible for those acts, because we are and feel ourselves to be responsible before moral tribunals- namely, God and our own conscience. If our own conscience should be blind, yet God will judge right. He will apportion justly praise or blame, Whose are, in Milton's language, " the pure eyes, and perfect witness of all-judging Jove ". The theory that we caninot conceive ourselves to be morally responsible, unless we can show, by some fine-spun argument, that we are in somle cases justly punishable, is a theory impugn- ing, the competence of the moral tribunals named. Like a too eager attorney, it would have us go to law with God.

The very opposite temper from this has been the mark of men not usually reckoned as deniers of moral responsibility. " Behold," says a Hebrew Psalmist, " I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me. But lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts." This writer at any rate felt no incompatibility between the sense of sin and the belief that his nature was not self-created. Still it may possibly be said, that this evades and does not meet the objection, or rather that it meets it only by a counter- alleg,ation, supported indeed by testimony, but still an allegation of fact only, the fact that persons are found who feel moral responsibility and moral guilt though feeling also that it attaches to them through no deed of their own. This case, it may be said, is an anomaly, inconsistent witlh the plain dictate of uni- versal good sense, that no man is justly responsible for what he did not himself choose to do or to omit. It is required, then, to be show-n in answer to this further objection, what the reason of the case, underlying the fact of the case, really is; and besides, that this reason of the case brings it under that plain dictate of universal good sense, and. does not leave it standing out, as a counter fact, or difficulty in the way of our accepting the dictate. This I will now attempt to show. In cases like that quoted from the Psalms, the thing for which the agent accepts moral responsibility is not the mere fact of having been born with such and such a nature, irrespective of what that nature-is; but it is the act or acts of choice, spring- ing from that nature, in doing which acts of choice he has had that sense of having power to choose which is called the sense of freedom. He is in fact so born, the nature which he is born with is such, that he has that sense of freedom in innumerable acts of choice; and the responsibility which he accepts is for his acts springing from his nature, for his acts and his nature together. It is as much part of his nature to be capable of free choice, as to have innate tendencies and affections to choose between. Now I say, that what is meant by freedom is to be learnt from this sense of freedomr, and from no other source. The sense of freedom in the agent is the subjective aspect of the objective freedom in the act of choice, is what warrants us in calling the act free, just as, when we call a rose red or a stone hard, our sen- sations of redness and hardness are the warrant for calling them so. We are not to look for any other freedom, any real freedom as it is called, of which the sense of freedom is a copy, or to which it gives a testimony. The sense of freedom is the real freedom. Volition, choice, resolve, are free acts by the nature of the case. The sense of freedom is an essential part of the consciousness we have of them. Now the sense of moral responsibility is attached to, and founded on, the sense of - freedom, and its reality and objectivity are warranted in the same way, namely, by being confirmed in consciousness by reflection, on repeated self-examination. We are morally responsible for' acts of choice (and indirectly for their consequences), because conscience, which is reflection on such acts, has that sense of moral responsibility, and a deeper and keener sense of it the more it reflects upon them. But this sense of freedom, which is the real freedom, together with its corollary moral responsibility, is nlot opposed antithetically to necessity; it is not freedom from the laws of the agent's -nature, but it is a part of, and bound up with those very laws and that very nature. The agent is not other than his nature and its laws; nor is his nature something imposed upon him ex- ternally, as seems to be imagined by those who talk as if it were possible for a man to be morally responsible for the nature he is born with (in the narrow sense they give the words), as they plainly do, when they repel the notion on the ground, not of its impossibility, but of its injustice. The agent other than -his nature and its laws, and his nature something imposed on him externally-these are notions re- quired by the fictitious freedom, falsely called real, falsely sup- posed to be the real existence of which the sense of freedom is a copy and a testimony. Required by it, because, unless the agent were pictured separable from his nature and its laws, that -fictitious freedom would be an abstraction, a power without an owner. An owner for the fictitious ' double ' of freedom is found in an equally fictitious 'double' of man, his substance or soul. Returniing to the sense of freedom, and to what has now been shown concerning it, I draw the conclusion that an agent is morally responsible for that part only, for so much only, of any of his 'acts as is accompanied by a sense of freedom, and for the consequences of that part; meaning by consequences, the habits and affections which that voluntary part of his acts has pro- duced in him. And this conclusion brings the case under that dictate of universal good sense which we began with. But the interpretation of what part and how much of his actions an agent, on this principle, is responsible for, is a most difficult in- quiry; indeed it is this that makes tlhe chief and deepest diffi- culty of cases of conscience strictly so called. The sense of this, I have no doubt, partly prompted the exclamation in the Psalm quoted above. An endless labyrinth of self-examination seems to await us w-hen we begin to dwell on -these things, drawing us on into depths of thought " beyond the reaches of our souls". As I find qi;yself on theological ground, I will venture one more remark' before quitting it. It refers to Dr. Ward's holding together, as if perfectly compatible, his doctrine of indeter- minism and the doctrine of God's perfect knowledge -of future human free acts. He says, " God's knowledge of future human acts supposes, as its very foundation, the wilrs free exercise in this or that direction. It is strictly and fully, we maintain, within my own power, that God shall have eternally foreseen me as acting in this way or in that " (April, 1874, p. 32). Now, that a determinist should -hold this view is quite simple and natural; for a determirrist considers that all acts, including those which are free in the sense of being due to the agent's self- determination, are determined by the nexus of the whole scheme of existence, of which they are a part. That future acts should be capable of being known supposes, according to the determinist, that they are, by some means no matter what, determined to take place in one way and not in another; for otherwise know- ledge of them would be impossible for want of an object. There is a real and there is an apparent contingency; real, on the supposition that some events, or acts, are undetermined by conditions; and apparent, on the supposition that our ignorance of their conditions is what makes us regard them as undeter- mined. Now, real cointingency, real indeterminism, and not oiily apparent, is what is usually meant by inideterminism; whereas determinists hold that contingency is never otherwise than apparent only. In what sense, then, does Dr. Ward hold his much talked of doctrine of indeterminism ? Or rather, how is it possible for him to hold indeterminism in the real seilse, and yet to maintain that God has perfect knowledge of future free human acts ? To me the two things seem incompatible. True it is, as Dr. Ward points out, that we conceive God's knowledge of future events as eternally present to him, and not as a mere fore-knowledge based on calculation of conditions, as human fore-knowledge is. But then this very conception is .contradicted by indeterninism; for on that theory some events and acts are undetermined up to the very moment of their taking place, so that till then there is literally nothing to be known, and God's knowledge fails, not because it is a knowledge based on calculation (which it is not), but for sheer want of a knowable object. The conception of an eternally present omni- science is taken away, when existence itself is conceived as subject to a limitation which attaches only to our mode of perceiving it, namely, to our inability to experience it otherwise than piecemeal, in successive moments of time. Determinism alone is compatible with God's eternal fore-knowlege, because it alone conceives the future as knowable notwithstanding that it has not actually taken place. The only explanation of this inconsistency which I can imagine is, that Dr. Ward has formed no positive conception of indeterminism at all, and h-as no positive theory of it, but only what he himself calls the "purely negative" one, that determinism is false (April, 1879, p, 30). Certain it is, that throughout these articles he gives us no clear or positive conception of how he imagines real indeterminism to be possible. Apparent indeter- minism, on the other hand, is a determinist doctrine, and indeed an essential part of the theory. Again, then, we find Dr. Ward indisting,uishable from a determinist.
252 Dr. Ward on Free- WTill. Far different from Dr. Ward's is the estimate I am led to form of the nature and validity of determinism, of its function in philosophy, and even in religious philosophy. To those who are dissatisfied with the crumbling corner-stones of Scholasticism, its notions of substance and substantial cause, those Platonic fossils embedded and preserved in the Aristotelic strata,-to them the law of the perfect uniformity of the course of nature, on which determinism is based, is the one firm bridge connect- ing the Unseen with the Seen World. To use another image, it is the one sound logical plank in the vessel of any philosophy which includes the Unseen World in its purview. Without it, scepticism as to the existence, or at least as to the knowability, of the unseen world would inevitably break in upon us. To this it is that we owe the logical possibility of the conlception, that the seen world, to which we belong, belongs itself to a vaster whole, with which it is linked in the adamantine chain of causation. Without this conception religious philosophy would be a dream. No ground on which thought of man could rest would be left for it. Real contingence, real indetermination, mean chance; and chance means scepticism, both in practice and in speculation; in practice it means life without purpose, and in speculation, thought without belief. In the domain of practice Free-will is the link which welds tog,ether the moral action of man with the laws of the universe. The nature of man, with which he is born, is such that he not only feels various attractions, but is able consciously to incline to one and decline another. This is his power of choice, of will, of freedom. It is a part of his nature. It is rooted, with his nature, in the necessary laws of the universe, and is itself one of them. By it man is entrusted (in his corner of the universe) with the carrying out of God's eternal purposes, becomes an agent for making nature in act what from eternity it is in po!ence. In Brynhild's words to Sigurd, in Morris's noble version of the great Epic of the North, the Volsunga Saga, we find this interdependence admirably expressed: " Know thou, most mighty of men, that the Norns shall order all, And yet without thine helping shall no whit of their will befall." This is possible only if conscious freedom is so welded together with unconscious action as to make one indivisible act of choice, in which the two strains of freedom and necessity are distinguish- able indeed by thought, but are not separable into two acts, one bound, the other free. Necessity is the inseparable condition, or rather let us say co-element, of freedomi. And without that co-element freedom is incapable of being construed to thouight, is something as impossible as walking without ground to tread on, or flying without air to beat. But indeterminism imagines a freedom apart from necessity, and places it in a " substance" apart, which solely because sup- posed to be independent of necessity is called a free agent. And see what difficulties this separatist conception gives rise to. First, the soul-substance must be admitted to have two separate modes of action, one when it acts by itself apart from the body, in which it is originative, intelligent, and free; the other when it acts jointly with the body, in which it is determinaed, blind, and necessary (April, 1879, pp. 37, 38). Endless questions, with no visible solutions, are suggested by this notion of duplicate action. And, sec6ndly, the inevitable implication of freedom with necessity follows the soul-substance even into its supposed originative and free acts, its acts of resolve. A resolve is always analysable into some end or purpose compared with and desired more than thers, then desired to the exclusion of others, then connected in thonght with the means of realising it. It is a complex and analysable state of consciousness, and connected with other states before and after. To treat it as an act origi- nated by the soul, a literal creation, and to give its origination by the soul as the only explanation of it, is therefore in contra- diction to the known analysis of the act itself. The indeterminist theory then, as given by Dr. Ward, is thus committed to maintain two distinct separations of the inseparable, the first when it separates freedom from necessity in the act of resolve, the second when it imagines a separate agent of freedom, the soul-substance. It makes freedom into an entity per se, and it makes the souLl into an entity per se. The latter has no warrant in analysis, and the former flatly contradicts it. It is therefore justly characterised as emtpiricism, because it places its ultimate explanations in entities which, admitting analysis, are given out as unanalysable. And not the less empiricism, be- cause, owing to the noumenal character of its " substance," owing to the absolute character of its " intuitions," it is empiricism of an ontological kind. . The battle between indeterminism and. its rival theory is but one division of the general conflict between empiric and analytic philosophy. SHADWORTH H. HODGSON. NOTE.-Since the above was written, a further article by Dr. Ward, " Supplementary Remarks on Free Will," has appeared in the Dubblin Review for October, 1879. It is a recapitulation and enforcement of his previous positions, withl more illustrations and replies to criticisms. No new position is taken up in it, nor are any new arguments employed, It seems therefore not to call for additional comment. The same remark -is to be made on a still later article, "Ethics on its bearing with Theism," Dub. Rev., Jan., 1880.